13th Zookeeper, by Bernd Struben

Book Review by Allen Stein

Have you read this book?

Zooearth is a re-creation of stone-age Earth, made to preserve Earth's
biological heritage. It is watched by twelve Zookeepers, who work from
an orbital base, with the help of shuttles called blimpies and an
extensive net of spybots. Then the pirates arrive, armed with a nasty
virus that can infect people and computers both, as well as more
conventional lasers and plasma cannons. The zookeepers and machines are
neutralized.

But wait, if you order now, you also get the 13th zookeeper, a ne'er do
well, poor little rich kid named Auren Bilder. Auren had been fired for
"fraternizing" with Zooearth's humans, to whom he is a god. The
pirates are out to enslave these humans.

Auren is not a nice person: He spooked a poacher into running into his
own mono filament trap, then watched him die. He wrote himself out of
the computer net ("ZOSS") and ran for the planet. He supposedly left
months ago. He really doesn't want to help. But, with "encouragement"
and help from the "natives", the pirates get a nasty surprise, and the
local equivalent of the prime directive is torn into little tiny pieces.

The thing is well told; I would read more by this author. He is Dutch,
though educated in the United States, and has written at least one other
book, which is called 40 Years.